


The Morning After With the Murderer

by dawngloaming



Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Enemies to Lovers, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Humor, Hurt/Comfort, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Morning After
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-02
Updated: 2020-01-02
Packaged: 2021-02-25 02:53:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,089
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22088848
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dawngloaming/pseuds/dawngloaming
Summary: It's exactly what it sounds like. A bit of silliness, a bit of hurt-comfort, a bit of fluff. My usual "let's explore Joker's insecurities" fare. Why am I like this.Oh yeah. Unbeta'd as usual.
Relationships: Batman/Joker (DCU), Joker (DCU)/Bruce Wayne
Comments: 14
Kudos: 136





	The Morning After With the Murderer

Bruce is sitting on the couch with a bowl of guilty pleasure cereal, watching his bed-tousled guest with wonder. Said guest is currently wrapped in a fluffy black robe of his, and looks utterly engulfed by it. Said guest is, of all people, the infamous Joker. 

Bruce can hardly believe it, but there he is, his...his uhh...his nemesis with benefits? His nemesis with benefits, staring off into the distance with wide, blank eyes...steadily munching his way through an entire box of powdered mini donuts. Really, the entire box.

Joker may be a sharp bony razor of a man, but he sure knows how to binge on junk food. Self care was never his strong suit. He sleeps when he wants (rarely) and eats when he wants (again, rarely), and his only exercise consists of running from the very man sitting by him on the couch. He doesn’t exactly lead a healthy lifestyle. But Bruce can’t blame him, because that would be hypocritical as hell, coming from a man whose job (not the Wayne Ent. one...the other one) is essentially a suicide mission.

Bruce stares in uncomfortably fond wonder. White powder puffs off each bite those immaculate teeth carve into the pastries, casting sugar all over the dark fabric covering his hickey-spotted body. It’s probably all over his face and hands, too, but no one would be able to tell, seeing as the dust is pure white and well...so is he. 

Bruce scoffs in amusement, noting that Joker has been sitting perched atop the back of the couch, right on the ledge, leaning against the wall for support. Yet again, he doesn’t bother saying anything. He doesn’t dare to ask why on earth the bastard can’t just sit normally. He’d just say something inane like, “Huh? Oh, I’m just clownin’ around.” That, Bruce has come to realize, is his new favorite response to every single exasperated sigh of “why?!” he gets from his “batfriend”. 

In any case, the odd pair is busy attempting to enjoy a lazy, late breakfast. They’ve both slept in after the previous night’s escapades. Apparently, the one thing that can get two insomniacs to finally sleep is a little bit of um...shall we say...physical activity. 

The reason the two are only ATTEMPTING to enjoy this domestic experience rather than authentically doing so, is that they are both feeling a bit OFF. Reasonably so, given the impulsivity of the night before. Bruce hasn’t been impulsive since his younger hothead years. He is methodical. And Joker? Well, last night was even a bit sudden for someone as spontaneous as himself. But hey, this is all the fault of SOMEONE deciding to act off script. This vague awkwardness is what happens when a dumb bat actually fucking texts the number that was grafitti'd onto his batsuit in gory red by a goddamn murderclown.

Neither said clown nor his favorite morally dubious vigilante could have predicted Bruce would actually USE the number. Even though Joker HAD gestured "call me" from behind the bulletproof glass of his cell (before he inevitably broke out, of course). But hey, Bruce had been lonely and so very VERY painfully awake.  
It had been one of those annoying nights off from “the mission” that Alfred insisted he take. For “mental health reasons”, he always told his workaholic Master Bruce. Bless Alfred’s heart, but these nights just made Bruce feel both stir-crazy AND bizarrely needy in a way Batman should never be. 

He disgusted himself with that needy feeling. And there was nothing he could do to dissipate it, since he didn't even have the energy to entertain women. He didn’t feel PERFORMING the role of Bruce Wayne, famous “himbo” and playboy billionaire. So, without the quick relief of some It Girl influencer’s company...what’s a bat to do in such moments of raw emotion? Two words: Jerk. Off. Duh!

But nothing had been turning him on. Nothing at all. That is, nothing but the thought of how exactly he had acquired a certain green-haired fool’s digits. He had tried in vain to imagine any one of his recent dates, and had even tried imagining them all together at ONCE. But nothing was doing it for him more than this particularly recent memory. The one of a particular jester. A particular jester who had sat straddling his lap, singing Sinatra under his breath, while he watched the armored damsel under him struggle. Bruce had been tied down with an intricate web of knotted rope, to some cold chair in some cold warehouse. Unfortunately for himself, Bruce knew deep down that he had never felt the cold, since the clown shifting in his lap had made him feel like fire under his batsuit. 

After a few minutes of ashamed jerking it to thoughts like these, Bruce had come to a decision. Joker already knew who he was, and had found out a while ago, in fact. Turns out, Joker didn’t much CARE about his "normie identity." 

Joker was the one person who wouldn’t want to sleep with just the playboy persona. He’d see through it. Which means Bruce wouldn’t have to PERFORM, and could ACTUALLY let off some real steam for once. Sleeping with Joker, he knew with a sinking intuition that he could be fully present ...as awful as it was to admit. 

So, what happened was this: Bruce CAVED. He caved and texted his penthouse address to the LAST person he ever dreamed to bring there. He bristles at his own reminiscence, still shaken that this is a THING between them, now. All this...the delirium of secret midnight meetings, of drinking Joker’s expensive-ass stolen wine, of letting Joker ride him half to death...all this was new, and honestly...what the fuck had his life come to?!

The worst part was that it wasn’t just sex. Joker had already insisted on blowing him in an alley, once before. The sex, therefore, wasn’t entirely novel. That first time had been totally random, and ended with Joker obediently letting Bruce take him to Arkham, with no (CRIMINALLY) funny business. Bruce agonized over having consented to that for MONTHS after the fact, refusing to tell anyone what had him EXTRA on edge at every JLA meeting around the time. But...that’s a story for another day. 

Anyway, again. The worst part was that last night wasn’t just the sex. Bruce had been...well, he had been fucking HAPPY when Joker decided that post-coital cuddles were in order. He had laughed, absurd as it sounds. Just like that first time Joker had touched him with such affection. That one night a teary-eyed Joker held him in the rain, police sirens whining in the distance, the echoes of a bad joke in the night air. 

And now, in the present moment, the two are just basking in a strange, mundane intimacy. The intimacy of sitting in silence, Bruce with his eyebags on display, Joker with his face wiped clean of makeup and looking equally haggard. The intimacy of two men, not two costumed lunatics, not two SYMBOLS or archetypes of chaos and order.

Joker jolts Bruce out of his contemplative daze with a kick to the thigh, drawing a flat, unaffected “ah” sound out of him. Unexpected pain is to be expected in his life. It doesn’t HURT hurt. 

“Um, could you repeat that?,” he apologetically asks the felon, who is now staring at him with an expectant intensity. His feet have come to rest on Bruce’s thighs, and are obnoxiously kneading them, the way a cat might. 

Joker gives a sort of full-body eye roll before restating his nonsequetir in the lilting voice of mild passive aggression. "Do you KNOW what it’s like to be told that you’re always wrong? DO you, Bruce ‘The Batman’ Wayne?”

This was an entirely random question, and the tone was entirely too heated for something this out of the blue. But well, Bruce is quite jaded to the other man’s moods, so he responds with a casual ease that’s only slightly faked.“...Sure I do. You tell me I’m wrong all the time. Wrong for giving a shit about...anything. And half of Gotham thinks we should be cellmates back at YOUR place, back at Arkham. So, I...I’m not sure I follow?” 

Joker clambers down from his higher vantage point, crawling across the couch to squash Bruce’s cheeks with hands that smell of lavender lotion. “Bruuucie baby, don’t get SMART with me,” Joker singsongs, half threatening, half playful. He actually enjoys when Bruce "talks back". Hardly anyone else ever does...no one dares, and that bores him to tears. His Batsy isn't boring, that's for sure.

Bruce’s arms are suddenly overflowing with one lanky body. Joker has draped himself across him, arms looped around the back of his neck. It could be threatening given his penchant for choking...but it really just reminds Bruce of a koala. 

“B-boy, it’s...it’s like this,” Joker starts, and then pauses, drawing his sparse eyebrows together in consternation. He often takes a minute to get his thoughts in order, if they’re racing. Bruce sympathizes, seeing as he was never known for his eloquence. 

His eyes suddenly widen and he opens his mouth in a little expression that screams “eureka!” He sits up a little more and then takes Bruce’s chin in hand, drawing that dark gaze to look directly into his fevered green eyes. He continues on in a voice that’s almost pleading him to understand...all emphatic and rushing words, all voice cracks and shifting pitch. 

“Y'see, every day that I’m in Arkham, I have orderlies and shrinks telling me I’m goddamn crazy, INSANE. And of course it’s not just Arkham. It’s the reporters, the civilians, YOU...everybody! And I even think this started BEFORE my brain got bleached out and soaked through in all those chemicals. I think the world and I have never seen eye to eye, I was always WRONG. Always MISTAKEN. A MISTAKE!”

He pauses with a quick sigh of frustration, flinging up both his hands as if crying out to the lord above. “And I’m not trying to sound self pitying! Like some damn victim. I’m never the victim, that’s everyone else. I’m the DANGER, not the damsel. I don’t deserve pity. I know that. But y’seeeee. The thing is. The thing IS! They tell me I’m outta my mind and loopy as a loon no matter WHAT. Really! Even when I feel that I’m just minding my business, or when I THINK I’m just...I dunno, telling it like it is? Just sharing my perspective on how life is going for me, what the world looks like to me. Sharing what I feel and what I perceive, y’know?” 

Joker clambers out of Bruce’s lap, all angles unfolding rapidly. He’s up now, pacing in front of the couch while Bruce watches, eyes following those broadly gesturing hands. “They all just think that it’s just ENTIRELY wrong! And that NOTHING of mine works! Not my eyes, not my ears, not my brain...and NEVER my heart. I’m a fuckin soooociopath. Or...or something! I don’t know how to feeeeel, they say! I can’t loooove. That’s impossible, I can only obsess! Even when I SHOW them. Even when I do cry, enough to give me a headache and put me to sleep for an hour. Enough that I couldn’t possibly be faking it. Even when I tell them about how I feel with you, and my cheeks are a-blazin with red. How does someone fake a blush?! But you know what happens? You know what fucking happens? No matter what, they just make me feel like I’m trying to...to tune into a radio station, to hear the news like anybody else, and it’s all just getting scrambled. I am always, always, ALWAYS in a glass cage, even when there isn’t a literal one around me. Which, as you know, there sometimes is. But that's not the point. The point is: even when they don’t SAY I’m wrong, delusional, lying, mad, nuts, DISTURBED or unwell...I see it in their eyes. Everyone’s.” 

Joker looks away, breathing hard and picking at his black nail polish so that it flakes in bits to the floor. When he’s collected himself enough to speak again, he uses an incredibly quiet voice. “They look at me with this weird mix of fear, confusion, distaste...and of all things...pity. The one thing I don’t deserve. But they squint at me as if I were some fragile thing in danger of shattering into sharp little shards of glass. A dangerous thing that’s somehow sad, because they don’t know how ANYONE will put it back together without getting their hands cut. They look at me like I’m a warning, an unpleasant reminder of how the brain is such a delicate organ. They wonder what crossed my wires so wrong. Everyone wants to know. Harleen did. Eddie does. Everyone wants to know what I’m hiding...but I don’t know that I’m actually hiding anything! I tell the truth as it comes to me. And very little ever does arrive that I’m actually sure of. Sure, sometimes I tell stories...but sometimes fact and fable blend together so that I can’t help but be inconsistent. I want something of mine to hold onto as much as all the shrinks do. That’s all I ever want. All I’ve ever wanted.” 

By the time he trails off to a stop, his voice is a whisper, and his lips are curved in a small, vacant smile. He’s paced his way into the center of the rather large apartment's living room, and his tall frame looks so damn small for once. He stands hunched into himself, in a shivery self-hug. 

Bruce feels his heart swell in his chest, and fights the urge to cough in discomfort at all that feeling. All that feeling for HIM of all people. After a beat of waiting for Joker to say more, he opens his arms and calls out a soft yet audible, “Well...you can hold onto me.” 

Joker glances up at him with large doe eyes and a trembling smile, mouthing the word “No.” “Yes, you can. J. C’mere,” Bruce tries again, tone uncharacteristically soft for the two of them. But well, everything is out of character, lately, isn't it? He speaks to Joker in this patient tone now because...because it's just what he wants to do. What he feels he needs to do, to make his heart ache a little less. He senses that this level of frank talk, removed of all grandiosity...is a bit of an anomaly for Joker. He knows he has been trusted with something precious. He feels...somewhat awful for not realizing how demeaning Arkham could be, how much more trapped within his mind the staff made him feel.

He makes a note to reconsider the current approach to Joker's mental health care in the future. He knows a little of what it's like to feel cut off from the world, as much as he might care for it. He hates the idea of anyone else suffering under that feeling...especially Joker, who he's only ever wanted to help. As silly as it might sound. 

Seeing the melting look in Bruce’s dark puppy dog eyes, Joker can’t help but shuffle over to him, head tilted away because he can’t bear to look at such a face for much longer. He slumps into Bruce with his knees drawn up, and buries his face into the brunet’s neck. Bruce caresses his hair for a bit, the way his mother used to do for him all those eons ago. It brings out a familiar and forgotten ache in Joker’s heart as well, prompting him to plant a kiss over a small beauty mark on Bruce’s skin. “You’re...you're right. I guess. I can. I can hold onto you. Haha! What else do I even need to hold onto...” Joker asks with a watery laugh. 

After a few minutes of more petting, Bruce scoops up the sniffling clown and breaks the silence. “You can ALSO hold onto my black card. For now. An hour, tops. Got it?” he asks, sad smile in his voice. He knows it’s foolish to be giving such gifts after exactly ONE night with his nemesis, and doesn’t fully intend to become a goddamn sugar daddy. But he knows nothing makes his companion more giddy than a new coat, or some other fancy article of clothing. He's seen the way he flounces about Gotham, whenever he gets new threads.

Joker giggles, genuine this time. Bruce can feel the shakes of his chest against his own. “Oh, Brucie. You really know the way to a girl’s heart. Burberry is having a sale, did you know?” he asks, squeezing Bruce lightly from within his arms. Bruce begins to carry him to the bedroom, where he can lounge by Joker’s side and supervise the shopping spree in comfort. 

“No, I didn’t know. Is it a good one? At least tell me it’s 50 percent off. Don’t want you spending all my cash, J,” he says with a smirk. “Oh shut up! You capitalist swine,” Joker gasps with a little smack to Bruce’s back. But he can’t stop smiling. 

Maybe he CAN hold onto this, he thinks. This thing with his bat. This NEW thing. Maybe it can be enough. Who cares if he never remembers who he “really is.” Who cares if no one understands him, if he never understands THEM. It doesn't matter. He knows there’s no way he ever felt as real as he does now, in his “past life.” He knows he has never felt so real around ANYONE as he does around the big black bat. Memories be damned. The whole world be damned. Joker wants nothing more than for all his memories to have the gravelly voice of one Bruce Wayne in the background. 

Unbeknownst to him, Bruce is thinking along the same lines. Frankly...he never wants to stop hearing that high nasal voice, that too-loud laugh. And oh. Oh. He’s truly fucked, now, isn't he? He knows it. It's as if the previous night broke a dam that was holding back years and years of feeling. Of devotion, though Bruce would never dare to call it that. Joker, of course, would. But regardless of their long history...geez. After one night? One, and Bruce is smitten? God damn.

**Author's Note:**

> My Bruce and Joker are mostly based on the comics, but Bruce has dark eyes instead of blue cuz damn...why does EVERYONE have to have light eyes? I think dark brown suits Bruce most, so I'm being the change I wanna see in the world. And my Joker's voice isn't the same as say, Mark Hamill's. Though you can imagine his if you want. But I personally see him as having a voice that's far more New York.


End file.
